Taking a poll...

Manda_H

I think your calories are pretty low for your weight. My highest ever was 270 but I kept my intake around 2,000-2,200 then with huge amounts of exercise to burn off the extra calories. I lost 2 lbs a week on average and went to size 141.8 lbs within 1 1/2 years.
Right now im just at 186 but im keeping my calories around 1800 and just ignoring whatever my exercise "gives" me. I just eat whatever I believe is going to be a good level for me for my metabolism when im done focusing so hard on losing weight. I want to not gain weight and 1800 keeps me full and content. To drop to 1200 and have my metabolism adjust to having that as my 'usual' i'd think would put me at a high risk of gaining most of it back because its not going to be normal eating for me. I guess for me my weight loss is just a step but maintenance is life so I need to eat as I want to keep eating so that I dont gain yet can drop down my exercise. So... thats what I do with those "extra" calories and how I do what I do... I just got really lazy when pregnant and quit exercising and started eating 2500-3000 cals a day and packed on 80 pounds i have to re-lose

NeuroticVirgo

I was eating my exercise calories, and I was still losing for a while. Then I stopped losing, so I stopped eating them lol.

MisdemeanorM

I eat mine. Keep in mind that 1200 is not the magic "don't go under" number for everyone. i generally try not to go under about 1400 but I have no solid rule. But, I don't watch that # on a day to day basis because for me, I have to be under regularly for several days in a row to start feeling it, and then eating more for a couple days and I am back to feeling fine. I yo yo my calories a little bit. Meaning some days I might only have a 500 net calorie intake for the day because I exercised a TON and just wasn't hungry (today it says to eat 3000 cals... not gonna happen!), but the next day I might eat all 2000 (1500+ exercise) or even go over 100. So I don't worry about each and every day as long as I'm not creating a pattern of going way under because this does not affect me negatively.

Also, if you have your goal set to a certain amount, and you exercise, then eating back only some of those calories should not take you past your net goal - it's not mathematically possible. UNLESS your net goal is less than your daily goal. If eating under your daily goal is not eating too little for you, then why do you have your daily goal set to a higher number? Hopefully that makes sense.... like, if you have your goal set to 1500 and you make sure you stay over 1200.... well, why wouldn't you just aim for 1200 in the first place not 1500 and it's OK if you net 1200? For me, I don't do this because 1200 is too few for me (regularly). So I don't get the whole "as long as you net over 1200 you'll be fine" mentality. For me, if I eat 1500, work out 600, and eat back 300. That's too little. It's 1200, but if I did that daily, it's too little. Eating back even 400 is probably too little and even eating 500 and netting 1400 regularly would be too little for me long term. (Now, I'm basing this on 100% accurate logging and cal count - eating back part or leaving 150 cals at the end of the day to account for error is another story, because you're actually assuming that you did get those calories, not going w.out them or counting them as an add'l deficit.)

Hope this rambling post made some bit of sense to someone!!

anjuna

I have been eating all my exercise calories, but I'm not losing weight!

I usually run 3 x5k a week and walk most days.

I think I need to not eat my exercise calories afterall - but I am always hungry!